I'd Be Yours (If You'd Be Mine)
by PiperPaigePhoebe01
Summary: Elena knows now, after all this time, that it was futile to fight against the connection they had, the thin, yet durable, threads that drew them to each other. She no longer has any desire to pull away, and she knows that he doesn't either.


**Author's Note: **I'm not entirely sure where this came from. I just opened a Word document and started writing. This is the end result. I guess that some of these ideas have been in my head for a very long time, and I recently decided to write them down. The title comes from Lover of the Light by Mumford & Sons.

I hope that you enjoy! Please review.

**I'd Be Yours (If You'd Be Mine)**

Elena _knows _that she cannot pretend around Damon. This fact is entrenched in her skin, sunk down deep into her bone marrow. She knows now, after all this time, that it was futile to fight against the connection they had, the thin, yet durable, threads that drew them to each other. She no longer has any desire to pull away, and she knows that he doesn't either.

It took years for them to find each other, really and truly, and she is not exaggerating. On more occasions than one, it was her fear and apprehension that tore them apart. She couldn't let go of her own reservations, he couldn't look beyond her past, and it often felt like they would be stuck at that impasse forever, perpetually on the cusp of something that was _just _out of their reach.

She remembers that she tried so hard to push that feeling away, tried so hard not to think about the _what if_s of their relationship. If she could even call it that—there were certainly times where it hardly classified as a relationship. The blame for that rested squarely on each of their shoulders at different times during these past two years.

But that isn't even the point.

The point is that she's utterly, completely, hopelessly translucent whenever she's around Damon. He stares at her with those blazing blue eyes of his, and she is lost. He tears away the walls she's built around her true feelings, her deepest emotions, like they are nothing more than tissue paper. She is stripped, bare and open before him, and she knows he can see every part of her that she tries so hard to conceal.

It's terrifying and exhilarating and frustrating and liberating all at once. He _knows _who he is. He _sees _her in a way that no one else has been able to see her. He sees what she classifies as goodness—all the hope and the compassion and the love—but he doesn't stop there. He looks deeper. He sees the darkness around the edges, sees how it sometimes overwhelms. She is not that innocent; there's a spark of anger and bitterness and tragedy and guilt all mingled into one. She has felt that darkness every day since her parents died, and Damon knows this, and he doesn't shirk away.

She's never had anyone who knows these things _stay _before. He's the only one who knows the extent of her darkness, she thinks. Stefan and Caroline and Bonnie and Matt saw her with her emotions turned off, her humanity nothing but a dim static in the furthest reaches of her mind, but none of them can ever understand how much of that _was _her. That darkness is still there—it's always there—but she keeps it firmly locked away, far out of sight, so that she never gives herself up.

But she knows that Damon knows, and she doesn't mind that he does. Strangely, she feels like him _knowing _just makes them fit together better. She doesn't have to hide with him. If she does, Damon knows exactly what he needs to do to draw her out.

She's vulnerable, open, free. She loves it and hates it in equal measure.

As these thoughts run through her mind, Elena traces the lines of Damon's face with her eyes. His own eyes are closed in sleep, and he looks like a little boy again, young, innocent, and unaware of the many lonely years ahead of him. Tenderness courses through her like a wave.

God, she loves this man.

They've only been together—truly together—for less than twelve hours, and she already feels happier and lighter than she's felt in years. There's nowhere else she belongs, and she's never been more aware of that fact.

She remembers that she tried to hide that too, but Damon always knew. She could never hide her feelings for him. _There's something going on between us and you know it, and you're lying to yourself_, he said on that one horrible night, and her eyes shone with the truth of those words despite herself. It's what they always say: the guy always figures it out first. The girl has to catch up.

Elena almost laughs at the thought, but she keeps it firmly in check. She doesn't want to ruin Damon's serenity. Her eyes never leave his face.

He knows her. And he loves her for it. Deeply, wholly and without reservations.

She suddenly feels too far away from him. She slides closer. The lone sheet covering her bare back slips down, only to pool at the base of her spine, but she doesn't care about that. She rests her head on her bare arms and gazes at Damon beside her.

His hair is so tousled and untidy from when she pulled it earlier. A smirk crosses her lips at the thought. She remembers the silky strands running through her fingers as he kissed his way down her stomach, remembers the way her fingers clenched involuntarily as he pressed a kiss to the very center of her, remembers the way she cried out in ecstasy, with abandon, as he licked the length of her and sucked her clit, sending her firmly over the edge.

She still feels the taste of him in her mouth from when she returned the favor. It had been appallingly easy to flip their positions, Damon's eyes wild and dark with lust and surprise. She began to kiss her way down his body, her eyes never leaving his face. Damon curled his hands in her hair and let out a throaty, unrestrained moan as Elena's lips slipped around the tip of his cock. Her eyes didn't stray from his face once.

She couldn't help but revel in the way that Damon relinquished control to her, let her reduce him to pants and moans and desperate cries of her name. He came with a sort of wild unrestraint, her name caught in his throat, his hands twined desperately in her hair.

She can't deny that it was satisfying to bring the great Damon Salvatore to his knees, to see him look at her with wonder and love and _need_, but the best part of the night came shortly after. She feels warm all over just thinking about it, remembering the look in his eyes, full of an intensity that Elena had never felt before. She moves closer to Damon, entangles her legs in his.

Damon had wasted no time in flipping them again, his face looming above hers, his eyes filled with a thousand emotions that Elena couldn't even begin to place. A fierce want began to burn again, deep inside her stomach, and she brought Damon's lips down to hers. The kiss was gentle at first, a simple brush of his mouth against hers, but Elena felt the intensity building. Damon kissed her with passion, with love, with everything that he had been holding back, and Elena returned the favor with every brush of his lips against hers.

Desperation built, spreading slowly through her entire body. She moaned against Damon's mouth as his fingers brushed against one bare nipple. "_Please_," she might've said, or maybe it was "_Damon_," or maybe it was both.

All she knows is that it took little time at all after that for Damon to enter her. He stretched her, he filled her, and she gasped against his mouth. She curled her legs around his waist. The new angle brought waves of pleasure as Damon began to move inside her, and for the life of her, she couldn't stop looking at his face. His face hovered above hers, pressing kisses to her neck, her shoulders, her mouth, but every once in a while, he stopped to look at her.

And it was like he couldn't believe that she was real. She clutched his back more desperately as his eyes met hers and searched for—something. He evidently found what he was looking for, because he kissed her with unparalleled passion. Elena's head swam with pleasure and love and lust. She couldn't think, she couldn't breathe, she could only feel Damon's body moving in tandem with her own.

It was as if they were always meant to move in this way. Like anything other than Damon and Elena being together was some sick, cosmic joke, and this, right now, was exactly where she needed to be.

She wanted to be close to him in every way possible.

"Damon," she breathed. "_Damon._"

It took a few more earnest cries and a couple more tugs on Damon's hair, but he eventually stopped his fervent attentions on Elena's breasts to look up at her. Elena whimpered at the loss of his tongue on her bare skin, but she still managed to get out what she needed to.

"Bite me," was all she said, and Damon's eyes grew wide.

"Elena—"

He had stilled inside her at these words. Elena groaned. "No," she breathed, moving against him. They both let out a chorus of moans at the sensation. "No," she said again. "No, don't stop."

Damon gazed at her. "Are—are you sure?"

Elena tugged at his hair, pulling his head closer to her bare neck. "I wouldn't ask if I wasn't sure," she said. "Damon—"

"I—Elena, bloodsharing is—"

"Kind of personal. I know." Elena smiled at Damon. She rolled her hips, thrust against him. "Exactly. That's my point." She reached up and touched his face. "We want this. We're here, and I'm ready, and I'm not hiding. And I want to be close to you. In every way possible. _Please._"

Her smile turned mischievous. "Or would you rather I bite you?"

That was all it took. Damon's eyes darkened. Elena let out a rather ridiculous-sounding moan as Damon began to thrust inside her again, a smirk crossing his own lips. Mingled in with the lust and the need, Damon looked down at her with admiration and love and—and there was no other way to put it—pure worship. Like she was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen.

Elena knew her own eyes were expressing the same, and Damon could see each one of her emotions cross her features. She couldn't hide from him, and she didn't want to.

Their pace quickened. Elena ran her hands along his chest, clutched his shoulders, his back, his ass. Her nails dug into his flesh, and her moans grew louder with each of Damon's thrusts. She watched as Damon's face changed before her eyes, veins appearing in sharp relief against his pale skin, his eyes darkening into a deep red.

His teeth bit into the delicate skin of her neck, his mouth warm and soft against her skin. All of a sudden, all she could do wasfeel—feel the heady rush of blood as it left her body, feel the gentle pressure of Damon's lips against her skin, feel the way his body still moved with hers, feel him meeting her stroke for stroke, feel the intoxication of Damon—his skin against her hands, his cock inside her, his mouth against her neck, taking from her very life blood, the very thing that ensured her survival—she was giving it into his hands, and he took it willingly, happily—she was one with him—one—

She cried out. It was like she was high—except it was better than that, it was like she was flying—she hung weightless in the air, suspended—the thread of pressure broke—and the pleasure rolled through her—_ohgodohgodohgodmoremoremoredon'tstop_—everything went blank and dark, all was pleasure, a pleasure so deep and consuming it was almost painful—

—And then it was gone. Remnants of the pleasure, the pleasure so deep it was almost pain, remained. Elena kept her eyes closed and rode the wave as long as possible.

Warm. She was warm all over.

And Damon. Damon. Damon.

She opened her eyes only to find his face above hers once again. From the looks of him, he had fallen over the edge with her. He had never looked more attractive, with his hair tousled, his eyes still hazy with pleasure. She saw a bit of her blood, warm, inviting, at the corner of his mouth. She leaned up and kissed it away, a lingering, soft kiss. She pulled away slowly.

"You—" For once, Damon seemed lost for words. "You—you're beautiful," is all he said.

All Elena could do in return was smile. She, too, had been breathless.

She's still breathless now, just thinking about it, remembering each and every moment with nearly religious devotion. Suddenly, it's like she can't waste another minute—another _second_—without kissing him, without feeling his lips against hers. Her need for him is all she can think about.

She leans up on one elbow and surveys Damon's face from above. His lashes flutter against his skin as she watches, and she can't help smiling. Part of her hates to wake him up, but the other part of her wants nothing more than to see his blue eyes looking at her again. The latter part wins out—obviously—and she presses a feather-light kiss against Damon's lips.

"Damon," she whispers in his ear.

He doesn't stir. He's either a very heavy sleeper or he's just playing at sleeping. Somehow, she suspects it's the latter, and she's more than willing to play along.

"Damon, wake up," she says, slightly louder. She tugs lightly on his earlobe with her teeth and runs her tongue along the edge. "_Damon_."

She kisses down his neck. She sucks on his pulse point, _knowing _that it drives him crazy, but he still doesn't stir.

"Come on," says Elena. "I know you're awake. You can't fool me."

She kisses her way back up his neck. Every once in a while, she stops to suck and lick a particularly enticing patch of skin. She tastes the soft skin and feels the way his pulse jumps beneath her tongue. Vampires might have a slower pulse than humans, but they still have one, and Damon's appears to be beating slightly faster than normal.

Elena's lips curl in a smirk. She carefully rolls on top of him, one of her legs on either side of his waist, and nibbles lightly at the skin just below his ear. She sucks and lavishes the skin there, taking her time, letting her tongue taste every square centimeter of his soft skin, and it only takes about three seconds for Damon's arms to go around her waist.

Elena raises her head and watches as Damon's eyes open.

"Ha," she says, before Damon can say anything. "I win."

Damon raises an eyebrow. Elena feels her heart skip a beat when she focuses on his eyes. "Oh, you do, do you? Are you sure about that?"

Elena grins. "Of course I'm sure. I know how to push _all _your buttons, Mr. Salvatore." As if to prove her point, she leans down and gives Damon a thorough kiss.

All thoughts dissolve from her brain when she pulls back. Damon looks like he can't quite believe any of this is happening, like she's _actually _kissing him—Elena can hardly blame him, since she's spent two years telling him no—but he recovers quickly.

"Oh, really, Miss Gilbert?" asks Damon. He looks thoroughly devilish with that smirk on his face, and Elena feels moisture pooling at her core despite herself. His eyes on her body certainly don't help, as he takes in every inch of her. "Are you sure I can't push some of _your _buttons as well?"

"Will you get the chance?" teases Elena. She runs her hands down his chest and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Is that a challenge?" asks Damon.

"Will you accept?"

The spark in Damon's eyes is all the answer she needs. Without even giving Elena time to think of a retort, Damon flips them over. He ducks his head and takes one of her breasts in his mouth, and all Elena can do is melt into the pillows and moan.

"You play dirty," she says between moans.

Damon lifts his head from her breast long enough to retort: "Did you expect anything less from me?"

"No, but you underestimate _me._"

Thanks to a strategically placed leg, Elena ends up on top of Damon once more. She looks down on him and rolls her hips against his. He groans. Elena feels his cock begin to grow hard against her.

She leans down to whisper in Damon's ear. "See, I know exactly what to do to make you beg for more. You think you're some great sex god who can bring any girl to her knees, but I know _exactly _what to do to make you come undone."

To illustrate her point, she rolls her hips again. This time, Damon involuntarily bucks against her, and Elena smirks.

"The game's not over yet, Gilbert."

And he's on top of her once again. His lips curve around her other nipple, biting and sucking, lavishing the skin, and it's all Elena can do not to melt into a puddle and let him worship her. She struggles to maintain her composure as Damon brings a hand down to finger her clit. She can't help it; she moans as he circles around the sensitive nerves.

She doesn't know how she manages to gather enough of her wits to bring Damon's head up roughly to hers, but she knows that she does, and his mouth tastes sweet. She deepens the kiss and reaches down to stroke his cock.

She's not going to give in and let Damon win, and apparently, Damon isn't going to let her win. The competition goes on like this for a while, but eventually—and she doesn't even quite understand why—she can't help laughing. The laughter is mingled in with the kisses, with the moans of pleasure, and she doesn't even care how ridiculous she sounds. She is just so _happy_, and she can't help but laugh.

She doesn't concede, but she has to admit her attempts get a lot sloppier. She contents herself with pressing kiss after kiss against Damon's lips.

"What's so funny?" attempts Damon, his eyes sparking with amusement.

Elena can't even answer. She just presses a laughter-soaked kiss to Damon's lips.

"Happy," is all she says.

Eventually, her laughter proves infectious. Damon's laugh is a little more reserved than hers, but it's a laugh, regardless—a ringing, deep laughter that sends shivers down her spine. They laugh against each other's lips, bodies shaking with the force of their joy.

"Does—does this mean you concede?" asks Damon between laughs.

Elena manages to rein in her laughter for a moment to look up at him. Her heart suddenly feels about three sizes too big for her body when she sees the pure, unadulterated happiness in Damon's expression. This isn't like the happiness of their first morning after. It's deeper, truer. There are no reservations, no doubts. She finds it hard to believe that she's made him this happy and, looking at Damon's eyes, he can't believe that he's made her this happy either.

She pretends to think, and then:

"Never."

Suddenly, she's on top of him again, and though the attempts at making Damon come undone are decidedly sloppier than before, she still manages to make him moan. His attempts are also sloppier, but that doesn't matter, because the amount of fun they have far outweighs the inelegance. Elena loses track of time, loses track of the amount of times they flip each other over, loses track of their relative distance from the edge of the bed.

This last little detail proves to be the most important. Elena attempts to flip them over for perhaps the twentieth or thirtieth time and, before she can even register what's happening—

_Crash._

—they topple over the edge of the bed and land in a heap of sheets on the floor.

There is silence for a moment as Damon and Elena try to figure out exactly what happened and then, as Elena looks down at Damon's shocked face, she can't help but burst into a cascade of giggles. A moment later, Damon joins in. Elena laughs so much and so hard that she can't even hold herself up. She ends up giggling into Damon's neck, every inch of her body collapsed against his.

"I—I—" She tries to speak between unstoppable giggles. "_I can't believe we fell off the bed_!"

"This is a first for me," admits Damon.

She looks down at him. His eyes are sparkling, his body is shaking with the force of his laughter, and she has never seen him so completely free and abandoned. For the first time, he doesn't look like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. She can't help it as her laughter drops off; she drinks in the sight of Damon's happiness. She tries to commit it to memory.

"Elena?" asks Damon. He raises a hand to cup her face. His laughter slowly dies away, though a hint of a smile still plays around the edges of his lips. "Elena, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," says Elena. "I just—"

She tries to put words to the feelings that are suddenly coursing through her body, but she finds that it's more difficult than she first thought. Finally, she thinks she stumbles across the right words.

"I've never seen you this happy," says Elena slowly. "And, whenever I look at you, you seem like you could stay in this moment forever and you would want nothing else from life. Like I'm all you need. I'm all you want. It's… it's overwhelming to know that I'm the one responsible for so much of your happiness."

"Elena—"

"No, let me finish." Elena stroked his face. His skin is smooth against her palm. "There is—there is nothing I want more than to make you happy. You should know that, and you should also know that, now, it's not because of the damn sire bond, or because of anything else. It's because I _love _you, and because you want to make someone happy if you're in love with him."

"I know that," says Damon.

He looks like he wants to say more, but Elena shakes her head. "No, you don't, and that's fine. You will. Eventually. Because I'm not going anywhere." She takes in a shaky breath, even though she knows it's completely unnecessary. "Being with you makes me the happiest I've ever been. I've never felt so free, like I could take on the world, or—or just stay in bed with you all day and never want anything more out of life."

Elena keeps her eyes trained on Damon's face. He rather looks like somebody just struck him in the stomach with a baseball bat, like Elena just knocked the wind right out of him. It seems like words have completely left him. Exactly as he did last night, exactly as he always does when he's lost for words, he pulls her toward him and kisses her. This kiss is sweet, gentle, their lips moving together in a rhythm that will soon become as natural as breathing.

The thought brings a grin to her lips.

"Do you remember what you said to me the first time we met?" asks Elena.

"'I'm a fatalist'?" Damon suggests.

Elena rolls her eyes at the grin on Damon's face. "No, you idiot," she said. "The _actual _first time we meant. When you said I wanted a love that consumes. I wanted passion, adventure, and even a little danger."

The spark of recognition lit up Damon's face. "I could never forget," he says.

"You also said you wanted me to get everything I wanted from life," she says. "And I remember—I remember thinking, 'How could this stranger possibly know so much about me? How could he be right?' But you were right. You knew me. You've always known me. And I am so glad for that, because—I need someone who sees me for _me_, you know? Not for who they want me to be, or for who I wish I could be, but for me."

"It was a lucky guess," says Damon, but there is an overwhelming tenderness and sense of understanding in his expression. He shrugs and tries to make light of the situation, but Elena knows better. "You were a teenage girl. What else would a teenage girl want?"

Elena rolls her eyes. "Don't make light of this, Damon," she says. "This—" she gestures to the two of them still tangled in the sheets—"was somehow supposed to happen. We fit together, and I know you feel it. And I—I know this is a really cheesy speech and all, and I should just stop talking, but this is truly where I should be." She lets a smile escape. "It's our time."

The minute Elena stops speaking and stares at Damon's frozen face, she wonders if she went too far. She's not really one for long speeches, and surely, Damon would be able to read all of her emotions on her face. She didn't need to say all that, not really.

She waits for Damon to respond. His expression is unreadable for a minute. Her stomach begins to coil itself into knots, but suddenly, Damon's expression relaxes.

"You know what?" he says finally.

"What?"

"We're the same, you and I."

For once, this thought doesn't make Elena to run in the opposite direction. She embraces it, because she understands Damon, and they have something, and she doesn't have to run. It's the truth, and it's the most real thing she's ever felt.

"We are," she says.

"I love you," says Damon.

Elena grins. And here it is. "I love you too."

Damon threads his fingers through her hair and strokes her face with his thumbs. The gesture makes her feel warm, protected, loved. She knows he truly does not want anything more as her lips crash against his own—and neither does she.

For once, it's right.


End file.
